From Uz : Arsenal’s yearly implosion.
The implosion, albeit late, has arrived.
From Thad Cox : I’ve had enough
I’m fed up with the same old story every year – Imploding after Xmas.
Getting injuries to key players, yet never signing cover or someone to shake up the team mentality. Crashing out of all competitions by creating endless chances, but never taking them in big games.
I hate myself for listening to Wenger, talking guff about potential.
It saddens me to see Jack playing in a team of gutless flat track bullies. I never realised how good we had it in the days of Bergkamp, Wright, Pires, Henry, Vieira. I am beginning to despise Bendtner, Clichy , Denilson, Rosicky, Diaby. They represent the weakness, the ‘Tim Henman’esque lack of bottle. ……sorry. It’s been building up for a few years now. I’ve lost my trust in Arsene, our relationship will never be the same again.
From Simon : Arsène Wenger, the Modern Day King Canute.
Same old, same old. Pretty and ineffective football. Can’t shoot. Won’t shoot. Man U win. Goalkeeper has a blinder AGAIN. We lose a key player through injury AGAIN.
Arsène Wenger is a modern day King Canute. I retract my riposte and admit that this is a meltdown of the highest order.
From Anthony Benson : Denial
Firstly Myles, I’ve enjoyed your blog for years.
I used to disagree with your (what I thought were) sceptical views – having believed in Wenger’s spin – but I now realise and acknowledge that I was in denial.
This might not be a dictionary definition, but Denial is the refusal to accept reality.
Mr. Wenger is also in denial. Either that or he’s a liar – but I will go for denial as that’s a less conscious state of mind from which to dictate. There’s no purpose to this comment other than to cement my own realisation that I was in denial – as I fear many gooners still are – but thankfully I won’t be wasting any more time or emotion on Wenger’s Creche.
Ps. The Utd teamsheet was the weakest I’ve seen in years – if not decades! My joy was tempered when I remembered that the quality of the players at the Creche were playing. If I was still in denial I’d have though that Utd were there for the taking. End of the road.
From Mark :End of the road
Hi Myles,
I love the blog, the uniqueness of your writing style and opinion.
Just returned from Old Trafford in the last hour.
Personally, I’m reaching the end of the road with this club under Arsene Wenger. On hearing the two teams at the start of the game, I was reasonably optimistic that we could get a result, and was relatively happy with our work in the half hour.
But as soon as Fabio scored from only United’s second attack, the game was finished.
Both goals came from a total absence of any cohesive defending. Wilshere apart, the other four midfielders on the pitch today failed to perform even the most basic of their duties.
It just feels to me as if the spirit of Arsenal, which has always been with the club since I first started attending as young teenager two decades ago, has now gone. I
‘ve had a season ticket all that time, and I am thinking hard about giving it up for next season, because of the deep and fundamental unhappiness which has been growing over the last six years.
And this evening, I feel that my decision has been sealed. It DOES feel to me as if a large part of our support at games is now on the verge of turning against Wenger.
I just wish that I could do something to accelerate this process – if you have any suggestions on this, let me know!
He brought the club to some great heights in 1998, 2002 and 2004 but we desperately need a clean break.
From Ray : Enough is enough
Another beatdown, this time by Man Utd.
They whipped us with fullbacks playing as wingers and a central midfield of O’Shea and Gibson – Urrghhhh!
As a collective they simply cared more about the result than we did.
Did Wenger really believe we could win 4 trophies this season when we haven’t even won 1 out of a possible 24 in the last 6 years?
Surely, he has to admit that this current squad is not good enough to win trophies?
To be honest it doesn’t matter what he says because the facts will spell it out at the end of the season.
What do we have to look forward to?
(1) Fighting talk about the league title until we mathematically cannot win it.
(2) A summer of transfer speculation but no big name or money signings.
(3) Fabregas to be sold – I wonder what will happen to the cash from the sale?
(4) AW saying ‘ I believe this team has a big future’.
(5) AW also saying that he will not buy an experienced keeper or any defenders because it will stifle the development of the young players.
(6) More of the same next season – Close on paper, but very far away from trophies in reality.
On a positive note, it was good to see players who had horrendous injuries return to the pitch. I know Valencia is a Man Utd player, but I was pleased to see him.
Aaron Ramsey is a fantastic player and I hope an injury-free campaign next season allows him to find the consistency to go with his talent.
R. Nathan : Getting bored of groundhog day
I just got back from Manchester and I’m actually not as disappointed as I have been around this time for the last few years.
Why is that?
Well, it’s because I’m actually used to it now.
I stopped reading your blog a few years ago, as I felt you were becoming very negative and somewhat anti-Wenger, which I found strange, considering you wrote The Professor but now I do understand your change of attitude towards the man as I too am thinking the same after having been a huge fan of his for years.
Yes, I am one of those mugs who has believed that Arsene Wenger knows what he’s doing and that he will turn it around soon, but I have actually woken up and I now fully agree with you in that Arsenal will not win another trophy while Wenger is still here.
In 2008 I witnessed Arsenal crumble within a week or so and I put that down to the unfortunate injury to Eduardo but since then it has been pretty much the same thing every year.
We complain about refereeing, we complain about injuries, we complain about everything but the bottom line is that Arsenal don’t change.
Wenger has his style of play that he believes in but what good is that style of play when you’re setting records for being the only team to finish a Champions League game without a shot on target?
Arsenal pull off some pretty passes but really what exactly is that achieving?
I have a few questions I’d like to ask Arsene Wenger:
Why can’t this team take a corner or score from a freekick?
Why do so many of our players attempt ridiculous back-heels that never come off?
Would Fergie or any other manager put up with that?
Would their players be allowed to attempt it time and time again?
How many teams lose a 4-goal lead?
When was the last time someone lost a league cup (or any other cup) final with a last-minute clanger?
How many teams make as many comical errors as Arsenal do?
How does a team continue to play with 2 fullbacks who can’t cross?
I’m sick and tired of asking these same questions every year, and I am sick and tired of watching Arsenal get humiliated and Wenger making things worse in his interviews afterwards.
I felt sad today when the Arsenal fans started singing “We won the league in Manchester” repeatedly for about 10 minutes.
That was 2002 and that is all we have to cling onto.
Man U fans came back with “You won the league 8 years ago” and I’m afraid if this had been a hip-hop battle then they would have won! I don’t know where Arsene Wenger is taking this team and now I really don’t care.
Like you, I refuse now to mention Arsenal and League title together.
A realistic prediction would be 4th place and I think this year that might just be safe. Of course Arsene will tell us that 4th place is like a trophy.
In conclusion let me just say Arsene DOES NOT KNOW!
He doesn’t have a clue and he will not bring any more trophies to this club.
From Steve Nicola : Dumb & Dumber illustrate Wenger’s flawed strategy
Hi Myles,
Having just watched us lose yet again at Old Trafford, I am feeling immensely frustrated, more so than I thought I would.
Why do I feel so annoyed? Is it because Fergie outfoxed Wenger for the umpteenth time, sitting back with two banks of four and letting us play our pretty, ineffective football in front of them before scoring on the counter?
Or is it because – Wilshere and Nasri apart – none of our players looked as motivated and determined as their opposite numbers, most of whom are not even regular starters for Man Utd?
Well, actually it’s neither of these.
It’s because the presence of Diaby and Denilson in our starting line up reminded me of the Chelsea semi final in 2009 and reaffirmed how flawed Wenger’s youth policy is.
In that game at Wembley our glorious leader dropped Arshavin and Nasri so he could play Dumb Diaby and Dumber Denilson, citing the reason that he “wanted them to believe they could win against a team like Chelsea.”
He sacrificed the game in order to develop his players.
Only it hasn’t worked out that way as two years on they’re still underperforming and haven’t acquired any mental strength.
For the second Saturday running Wenger played Dumb & Dumber alongside Wilshere in midfield. Did you not watch the first hour against Sunderland Wenger? Did you not see how impotent we were, how pedestrian our forward play was? How Dumb Diaby slowed the tempo too much? How Dumber Denilson makes only sideways passes and has no positional sense? How we only carved open Sunderland once you subbed them?
Of course he noticed, but decided in his infinite wisdom that Dumb & Dumber needed yet another chance to prove they can make the grade.
Never mind that between them they have racked up 308 appearances for Arsenal, stubborn Wenger keeps picking them in the forlorn hope he can make solid Premiership players out of them.
How many more years are you going to give them, Wenger? How many more years are we going have to put up with nearly winning something because you refuse to buy proven Premiership quality and pamper mediocre players like Dumb & Dumber?
I’m not holding my breath, but until Wenger changes his ways our trophy cabinet will continue to gather dust. Steve PS – Please keep writing the blog, I really enjoy it.
From Alex: I’m very bored
Post United loss I jumped onto Facebook to see the headline from Arsenal’s official page ‘A good performance against a strong opposition’.
It highlighted everything that is wrong with Arsenal football club.
Not winning is seen as a highly acceptable result for the season.
I once justified that Arsenal’s lack of English players is not a concern of mine because our manager is paid to improve the club and not the national side.
Well. this now goes further. Arsene, your job is not to further the careers of young players but to bring the best possible team to the club and get them winning trophies. I do not want to hear the line ‘what happens to a young player when you bring in more experienced players?’ as an excuse not to invest.
If Diaby’s career fails because a better, more experienced player is brought in for the benefit of the team, then great. In fact if Diaby, Denilson, Eboue, Bendtner, Arshavin, Clichy, Almunia et al have shitty careers because Arsenal brought in better players, then that is just fine by me. If these better players are 18 or 30, I still don’t care so long as they are better. But until this club accepts that coming first is good and everything else is losing then we are going to have weeks like this one over and over and over again
From Huseyin Faik : 1 moment summed it all up
I must be a genius because i saw all this coming the moment we lost at Wembley.
Why is it someone like me can see so many things wrong when a man paid £6 million a year cannot? His kids could not beat a weak Utd team with 7 defenders because his will to win is reflected in his players just as Fergie’s is in his.
Now let’s not let the table deceive us : the season is over.
Chelsea stand more chance of overhauling Utd.
From Jay: World Domination
In August 2008 I was in Barcelona for the annual John Gamper Trophy.
I saw Boca Juniors play Barca and they should have been 3-0 up by ninety minutes.But Boca were 1-0 in the ninety and then conceded 2 goals in the injury time.
I reckon that could have been the first match of Guardiola`s career.
It seemed a very ordinary football match but little did I know that by 2011 , the very same team would be set for World domination.
Which brings me to Arsenal. Having invested in the squad from 2004, is Wenger any closer to producing a big team? Let alone a team capable of world domination?
Yes, they could be joint top of the league if they win the game in hand.
But is the team with Chamakh, Bendtner, RVP. Diaby, Denilson, Rosicky, Clichy, Eboue, Squilacci, Walcott, Song, Almunia, Fabianski, Vela, Szczesny,(who let`s be fair did cock up the Carling Cup) capable of winning the big games?
Is this the team that we have waited for since 2004?
Let’s be fair, many of us thought in 2004 that Arsene might get it wrong for 1 or 2 years but six years? Come on, we are talking about Arsene here. Arsene has sold us future and these players for all these years but I see future holds no promises for Arsenal especially if Fabregas goes to Barca this summer.
Arsene being a statistician might want little more respect for the years in the CL or keeping us in the top four. But the fact is Arsenal were on top in 2004, they were a team that with a little less of the Almunias and Diabys that arrived next summer, could have been one of the best in Europe.
This team, it is nothing ,unable to top the group consisting of Shaktar,Braga and Partizan.
Need I say more.Time to move Wenger upstairs.
From Kee Ming San
Hi Myles,
Unsolicited but my thoughts on the FA Cup.
And then there was one . We stared down the barrels of 4 guns and were blasted down to size. Another match. Another defeat. Another tournament exit.
Manchester United 2 Arsenal 0 (FA Cup quarter finals) Ferguson played 3 defenders in midfield and got away with it. How ridiculous was that!
Wenger played his strongest possible line-up and lost.
Expect the usual litany of excuses. “The (insert name of previous match) took a lot out of us. The players gave their all†and “We would have won if not for (insert name of match official)â€
And my favourite of all, “We were not playing with our usual fluency.â€
If our fluency is all that usual, you wouldn\’t have to repeat that statement so often.
Your persistence with buying and playing substandard players – Diaby in particular, had more chances than convicts in the Yellow Ribbon Programme – cost us time and time again.
With the Man United line-up today, shorn of nemesis Anderson, Fletcher, Park Ji Sung, we were expected to overrun the midfield. What happened? What were Denilson and Diaby doing? Meekly losing the balls in important areas. Failing to maintain composure and keep the ball in the face of Man United hard-pressing tactics.
And of course, Calamity Al doing his best impersonation of goalkeeping. “Trust and believe in me, this team can deliver great thingsâ€, you saith.
You are testing our faith to the brink. This is the edge of the precipice.
Can this team stand up and deliver the 2010 Premier league title? Mathematically we have a good chance if we hold our nerve from now to the end of the season.
istory suggests otherwise. The house that Arsene built is made to crumble.
From David : Saturday
What a total waste of time on Saturday.
Would have been so much better for fans and the club just to give the tie to Man U and not bother making the journey.
Arsenal have been absolutely diabolical in the FA Cup this year. More irritating was the look on Diaby’s face when he was brought off. He played dreadfully, the team hadn’t made Van Der Sar do anything, and they were looking very likely to exit a 3rd competition in a fortnight.
Yet Diaby looked like he didn’t have a care in the world as he ran off, and patted his replacement (Ramsey) on the back as if to say ‘Enjoy a quick stretch of your legs, no need to try and do anything about the result.’
Guess he knew full well that no-one was going to get angry at him for his performance. Diaby and Denilson, please leave this summer!! –
From Roy Newson: 3 out of 4 escaped
At Wembley I couldn’t believe how we threw away our first Cup chance in the dying moments with a farce more suited to the theatre.
On Tuesday I stayed home with my three ladies to celebrate International Women’s Day & enjoy dinner. Discretely catching up on my little radio hoping to hear us dump Barca out of the Champions League. Pity then that our game didn’ get under way, but who’s to blame?
Not the AW or the team but the referee. Er, how many shots on goal?
And this weekend I readied myself with family in front of tele to watch us take on our great enemy Man Ure. Unfortunately, another falling by the wayside. One up to Fergie. One more attempt to go to avoid yet another trophyless season.
Since 2005 we have gone rapidly backwards. Why is this? Why has the Club ignored basic principles? Why has AW turned good practice on it’s head?
Not giving Gallas a 2-year contract and forcing him out to Spurs. Not realising that Sol Campbell made a great contribution on his second time with us. Was that also wise?. The fans know how influental those two and others have been in adding experience and beef to the side.
Two wrong judgements among many. Sorry, all these errors add up and in the we stand today in total disarray.
I’ve been a supporter for over 50 years, am a season ticket holder and am apalled at the current mismanagement that has brought us to this point.
Myopia reigns. The Club champions financial diligence above all else but achievements don’t come from the balance sheet.
Our record rests on our brilliance on the pitch and the trophies, rewards and respect this brings. Football is a sport not just a business.
Now we are fed only excuses not trophies. Arsene, the epitomy of excuse culture. Never to blame.
Imagine Simon Rattle at the Berlin Philharmonic relying only on young instumemtalists. Arsene was supreme when he married experience with fresh blood. Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Lee and Nigel. He prolonged their careers with his methods. He added to them Thiery and Patrick. What a mix !
It has all gone bellyup in the pursuit of idle dreams. Now its the tinkering philosophy which has proved to be a failure. Others always responsible for our failures. Excuses worn thin.
Alex Ferguson bought a mature goalie from Fulham some long time ago – many commentators expressed doubts.
He’s still there getting better and better. What a master stroke that decision proved to be, as we saw again to our cost this week against us.
Why didn’t Wenger buy Shay Given when he was still at Newscastle ? Another smart move ignored. Many other similar misses made. Now it is all delusional and like the Emporer’s clothes, no one at the club has the b***s to so.
Where do we stand now? Can we go onto win the Premiership? One half of me says ” that would be great – for the lad’s in the squad” The other half of me says “That will just reinforce AW’s view that he has been right all along”.
At the end of the day no person is bigger than the Club, so for that reason, and for us to get back to reality and common sense, I think it should be his last season.